Michigan Tech’s College of Engineering has moved up in the US News & World Report annual ranking of graduate schools. Tech’s graduate engineering program is ranked 85th in the nation in 2012 rankings released online today. Last year the graduate engineering program overall ranked 86th.

Four graduate engineering specialties were ranked in the top 50 nationwide for the second year in a row. Environmental Engineering ranked 28th; Materials Science and Engineering and Mechanical Engineering-Engineering Mechanics each ranked 48th; and Civil Engineering ranked 49th. Their rankings were the same last year.

"We are pleased to be recognized among the nation's best graduate engineering programs, and to continue to receive special recognition for our programs in Environmental, Mechanical, Materials, and Civil engineering," said Tim Schulz, dean of Michigan Tech’s College of Engineering.

Jacqueline Huntoon, dean of the Graduate School, said she was glad to see the positive change in the ranking of Michigan Tech’s College of Engineering. “The initiatives that are currently underway are beginning to pay off and will hopefully lead to even higher rankings in the future,” she observed. “I am also happy to see that the rankings of four of our programs remain in the top 50 again this year. We face strong competition andare holding our own.”

Each year, US News ranks professional-school programs in business, education, engineering, law and medicine. The overall rankings of graduate schools are based on two types of data: the opinions from deans, program directors and senior faculty at more than 1,200 institutions, and statistical indicators of excellence, including percentage of faculty who are members of their most selective peer group( in the case of engineering schools, the National Academy of Engineering), the average Graduate Record Exam score, the ratio of PhD students to faculty, research expenditures, graduate enrollment and PhDs granted.

The rankings of engineering specialties are based purely on assessments by department chairs in each specialty.

US News periodically ranks graduate programs in the other fields, including the sciences, social sciences, humanities, public affairs and public policy, fine arts, library and information science, and health fields. Michigan Tech’s biological sciences, earth sciences and physics graduate programs were ranked last year. They were not evaluated this year.

Michigan Technological University (www.mtu.edu) is a leading public research university developing new technologies and preparing students to create the future for a prosperous and sustainable world. Michigan Tech offers more than 130 undergraduate and graduate degree programs in engineering; forest resources; computing; technology; business; economics; natural, physical and environmental sciences; arts; humanities; and social sciences.